Fell So Far
by NothingSpecial
Summary: Tifa looks back at her relationship with Cloud after Meteor and wonders how things changed from friendship to hate.


If you think about it, you and I really weren't childhood friends. Or best friends.  
  
Everyone.Barret, Cid, Yuffie, Red, Reeve.hell, even Vincent saw us as best friends. Everyone in AVALANCHE thought that we were close. The planet and the people living on it.they all saw Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockheart as childhood friends who, by some miraculous twist of fate had reunited to save the world from a demented madman. Everyone was under the false pretense that you and I knew everything about one another. That we had the perfect relationship a man and woman could have.  
  
Hell, I pieced together your life and saved your soul didn't I?  
  
But when you think about it.that's really all I was good for. Did we ever share anything else? Our hopes? Dreams? Problems? Just common, everyday gossip?  
  
No. You saved those for Aeris. The girl who was the epitome of innocence and purity. The girl who gave up her life to save the planet.  
  
How could I ever compete with her?  
  
I can never understand you. I don't know where we went wrong. After the final battle in the crater, we decided to make a life together in Nibelheim. Rebuild it. And possibly create a life with one another.  
  
I should've known it wouldn't be that easy.  
  
Oh, the first month and a half was perfect. You...really seemed like you loved me. I remember.we went to the Golden Saucer that one night when we felt like getting away from our responsibilities in Nibelheim. You held me and kept me close to you and said that you thought you were falling in love with me.  
  
After that though.things got out of control. We were both passionate people and took things farther than we should have. But you never told me that you were tiring of me constantly.well. "jumping" on you as you so eloquently put it. I just couldn't get enough of you.  
  
But apparently, you already had enough of me.  
  
After that.we stopped. We agreed to take things slow, maybe take a break for a while. I should've known then and there that it would be impossible for things to be the same again in the future. Things.happened. We went about on our everyday business, joking with one another and interacting enough to make ourselves look like the perfect couple to the outside world.  
  
But inside, I was dying. I needed you. I followed you around like a fucking puppy dog. We didn't live in the same house despite what AVALANCHE thought. We really didn't talk about anything worthwhile. And you.you became so disinterested in everything I had to say.  
  
And now.3 months after all that.it's so hard to believe it's barely been half a year since everything has happened. And look at us.  
  
We hate each other.  
  
There still had been sparks between us. Apparently, we still felt something for one another. But you had found someone else as well. Rachel.right? A lovely, carefree, flirtatious brunette from Wutai. And for a while.you hovered between choosing between us.  
  
You never stopped to think that I wasn't happy with being just a choice to be made. That even if you did "pick" me, you could never get rid of your feelings for Rachel just because I was chosen. That it wasn't fair for you to put me through all this pain.  
  
We were doomed from the start. I knew it. And so did you. We fought. We argued. And it shocked the world.  
  
Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockheart arguing? Insulting one another? Treating each other like shit?  
  
In reality.I know I started it. I just.didn't know any other way to deal with the feelings I still had for you. So I hurt you. And you hurt me back.  
  
AVALANCHE still can't understand it. Whenever we have group gatherings, the looks we give each other.steely blue and firey red clashing together and then looking away.it's an enigma. We avoid each other like the plague. Because I know if you make one more smartass comment to me, I'll punch your lights out.  
  
And deep inside.I'm saying "Go ahead.just say something. Because I want to hurt you. I want to scream and yell at you and throw things at your head. I want to release all this pent up anger, pain, and bewilderedness as to why we're like this. Why we can't be the way we used to be. Why I couldn't control myself." Because around you.I can't. I can't control myself. And that scares me. That you can do this. That just one look from your cerulean blue eyes can send me into a myriad of violent emotions.  
  
I hate it.  
  
I hate how no matter how much I deny it.I might feel a tad more than hate. Oh, the hate's there. But so is.the other feeling. I won't say love, because it's not. It's something else.infinitely more powerful than love- lust. I want you.  
  
After everything, I still want you. Because you, Cloud Strife, were my life. You made me feel things I never felt before. I might not love you.but I want you. But you. You've forgotten me.  
  
Ignorance is a thousand times worse than insults. Because than.I, at least, know I'm worth something.  
  
How did we fall so far from what we used to be? 


End file.
